Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)    

Little words of wisdom

 

One project finished...

and another one begun ~ after a few false starts 😏

You may remember my post last month, my lovelies, bringing you up-to-date with my crochet projects.  Well, I've finally finished the gift blanket I seem to have been working on for ever 😉  

The yarn is Hayfield Bonus Aran Tweed in the shade Honeycomb; it's a 6% viscose, 20% wool, 74% acrylic mix.  Corner-to-corner works up pretty quickly and I felt it only needed a very simple edging, so just added two rows of half trebles to finish it off.  I'm very pleased with it 😊   

My new project is using up some more of my yarn stash ~ I'm making a sweater for Beverly 😳  As you can see from the photo, this is King Cole Drifter double knit, in the shade Ohio (a 69% acrylic, 25% cotton, 6% wool mix).  I bought the yarn from Wool Warehouse a long time ago and it seems to have been discontinued.  It is, as the label boldly declares, a very soft yarn indeed and is lovely to work with.

However this is the first time I've ever attempted an actual garment ~ apart from some very simple dolls' clothes ~ so I'm not too sure how long this will take to finish 😄

It's a simple pattern (Yarnsmiths Cedar Sweater), though, comprising of rectangles with very little shaping so fingers crossed it won't be too traumatising!  Having said that, I still managed to get myself into a bit of a muddle with the gauge swatch 😏  The pattern calls for a 4mm hook but when I made my swatch I had too many stitches across the row.  So for reasons that I cannot for the life of me fathom, I tried again.....using a 3.5mm hook!  Naturally, I ended up with even more stitches and I'm a tad embarrassed to admit that it took me a few minutes to realise that I actually needed a larger hook 😳  I tried again with a 4.5mm hook and thankfully it was third time lucky.  I still hadn't finished being daft, though, because instead of making my starting chain with a 5.5mm hook, I used a 5mm one instead ~ then found myself wondering why the bottom edge was resembling a banana!  I also managed to mis-count the starting chain, and ended up one stitch short. I managed to add an extra stitch, though, by somehow fudging an additional chain ~ don't ask me how I managed it as I've no idea to be honest!  Oh well, I got there in the end 😉

Do you like my stitch markers, by the way?  They are cute little teapots in lots of different colours 🫖 I'm adding one at each tenth row so that I don't have to keep counting from the beginning.

The pattern uses Yarnsmiths Merino DK Superwash yarn in four different shades but I wanted to use up some more of my stash, hence the King Cole that I'm working with.  I got Beverly to choose which yarn she liked the look of, and this is what she selected ~ green is her favourite colour.  

And finally, I thought you might like to see the lovely carnations that Adrian bought me last week.  I ordered some pink ones from Tesco with the weekly delivery a few weeks ago, but they were quite disappointing in that they didn't seem to last very long.  These came from the Co-Op, though, and their flowers generally last quite well.  Pretty as Miss Schlumbergera's blooms currently are, it's still nice to have some cut flowers in the house 😊

Reading round-up: October 2025

image from Clipart Library

Mr Pottermack's Oversight (a Dr Thorndyke novel -British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke (a Dr Thorndyke novel -British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

When Rogues Fall Out (Dr Thorndyke's Discovery) (a Dr Thorndyke novel -British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

Dr Thorndyke Intervenes (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

For the Defence: Dr Thorndyke (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

The Penrose Mystery (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

Felo De Se? (Death at the Inn) (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

I'm very pleased with the amount of reading I managed to achieve during October ~ it does rather make up for my lack of enthusiasm earlier this year!  As you can see, I am still reading the British Mysteries Collection ~ or to be more accurate, re-reading them.  I'd forgotten just how many stories are in this collection, and they aren't exactly short stories, either.

Adrian usually goes up to bed a fair bit earlier than I do (I'm very much more of a "night owl" than he is 🦉😄), and that's when I do most of my reading.  I've been finding, though, that I'm also reading more during the day rather than putting the TV on, which has to be better I think 😉  I don't know if I shall get through so many books this month, though, as I've just finished one crochet project and have started on a new one!

I still haven't got round to dusting her, but thought you might like to see how Miss Schlumbergera's blooms are coming along ~ she is just so pretty, even with a light covering of dust 😊

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)   

Hazelton

New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town:

Looking worse...

 

Little words of wisdom

 

Hazelton

 New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town:

Fernleigh House

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)   

Still a very bad housewife!

image from Freepik

Nothing new there, Sharon, I hear you say 😉  To be fair most of the house is fairly tidy, but alas the same cannot be said for my little corner of the living room 😏

I have a very bad habit of just piling stuff up to "look at later".  Unfortunately "later" tends to become very much later indeed, until it reaches the point where the piles are in danger of toppling over 😳

Since we are fast approaching the time of year to start using the log-burner, I shall have to gird my loins and make a concerted effort to get my corner properly tidied up!

In less chaos-related news, my faithful little Schlumbergera is putting out lots of buds again...

and ten days or so later, those buds are growing very nicely indeed 😊 More Schlumbergera progress to follow ~ and perhaps I'll even dust the poor little bugger 😉 

Somewhere that is a lot tidier is the dining room!  Do you remember the stack of crates filled with books that I'd weeded out from the craft room?  When I had my recent GP appointment, since we were getting the bus I suggested to Adrian that we could fill up my trusty shopping trolley with some of the books and drop them off at the library, which we duly did.  When they were handed over to the Librarian she was absolutely over-the-moon and thanked me many times, which made the downsizing "trauma" very worthwhile indeed 😊

We explained that we would bring the rest of them down gradually, since we don't drive and would have to transport them in the shopping trolley.  She was amazed that we'd hauled them there by bus and said that she would see if her colleague, who was at lunch, would come and collect the rest of the books to save us having to schlep them down one trolley-load at a time.  Adrian had a call from said colleague a couple of hours later, and she came and collected all the book-filled crates shortly after.  So not only did we rehome the books all in one go, we also got shot of the plastic crates at the same time since we didn't have any further use for so many of 'em 😏   

Nothing whatsoever to do with my lack of housewifery skills, but I thought I'd show you the potatoes I've started to harvest.  I'm very pleased with the crop so far ~ this is from a couple of plants.  I'm going to grow potatoes again next year but in large tubs rather than the raised beds.  As I mentioned previously I am intending to scale back somewhat over the next couple of years or so.  I really don't want to stop growing altogether, though.  At the moment, I'm still in the process of deciding how many of the raised beds in the kitchen garden to eventually dismantle but it's proving to be a hard decision to make!

Hazelton

New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town: 

The new project...